“Oh,” cried Federigo Boromeo, “what a welcome visit is this.  You have good news for me, I am sure.”

“Good news!  What good news can you expect from such as I?”

“That God has touched your heart, and would make you His own.”

“God!  God!  If I could but see Him!  If He be such as they say, what do you suppose that He can do with me?”

“The world has long cried out against you,” replied Federigo in a solemn voice.  “He can acquire through you a glory such as others cannot give Him.  How must He love you, Who has bid and enabled me to regard you with a charity that consumes me!” So saying, he extended his hand.

“No!” cried the penitent.  “Defile not your hand!  You know not all that the one you would grasp has committed.”

“Suffer me to press the hand which will repair so many wrongs, comfort so many afflicted, be extended peacefully and humbly to so many enemies.”

“Unhappy man that I am,” exclaimed the signor, “one thing, at least, I can quickly arrest and repair.”

Federigo listened attentively to the relation of Lucia’s abduction.  “Ah, let us lose no time!” he exclaimed breathlessly.  “This is an earnest of God’s forgiveness, to make you an instrument of safety to one whom you would have ruined.”

IV.—­In a Lazzeretto

Thanks to his cousin, Renzo was enabled to earn very good wages, and would have been quite content to remain had it not been for his desire to rejoin Lucia.  A terrible outbreak of plague in Milan spread to Bergamo, and our friend was among the first to be stricken down, his recovery being due more to his excellent constitution than to any medical skill.  Thereafter, he lost no more time, and after many inquiries he succeeded in tracing Lucia to an address in Milan.

Secure in an alias, he set out to the plague-stricken city, which he found in the most deplorable condition.  Having found the house of which he was in search, he knocked loudly at the door and inquired if Lucia still lived there.  To his horror, he found that she had been taken to the Lazzeretto!

Let the reader imagine the enclosure of the Lazzeretto, peopled with 16,000 persons ill of the plague; the whole area encumbered, here with tents and cabins, there with carts, and elsewhere with people; crowded with dead or dying, stretched on mattresses, or on bare straw; and throughout the whole a commotion like the swell of the sea.

“Lucia, I’ve found you!  You’re living!” exclaimed Renzo, all in a tremble.

“Oh, blessed Lord!” cried she, trembling far more violently.  “You?”

“How pale you are!  You’ve recovered, though?”

“The Lord has pleased to leave me here a little longer.  Ah, Renzo, why are you here?”

“Why?  Need I say why?  Am I no longer Renzo?  Are you no longer Lucia?”

“Ah, what are you saying?  Didn’t my mother write to you?”

“Ay, that indeed she did.  Fine things to offer to an unfortunate, afflicted, fugitive wretch who had never done you wrong.”